The academic curriculum in Ethiopia is changing rapidly, intending to adapt to the world's best trends in the education space. Recently universities have added workshops on campuses as part of the curriculum. Most of the workshops focus on tech-related topics. However, Blockchain hasn't been a topic that has got enough coverage.

A partnership with universities will open a new era for Ethiopia and Cardano as we could observe a chance for Blockchain included as part of the academic calendar.

Hosting workshops will bring more people from different backgrounds with various solutions to the space.

Universities in Ethiopia accept thousands of students every year. Universities all over the country are huge communities and host a significant amount of the youth population. Such seminars and workshops create a great deal of traction among the demographic group, and it comes easy for students to learn more about Cardano at a younger age.

The workshops and seminars aim to provide an Introductory knowledge about blockchain and a guide on how project catalyst works, forming partnerships among attendees hoping to solve real-life problems we see in our environment. This creates significant growth in Ethiopia as the educated group gets early awareness about the importance of blockchain and what they can do with Cardano blockchain.

The major challenge for this project could be the academic timeline of the universities. After the incident we have faced in the country, the academic calendar has often been changing, and different universities have their own timelines. This is a challenging factor that needs extensive planning.

The first phase of this project is to select 6 universities that have agreed to host the seminars with us. These universities are in different parts of the country so planning will take some time.

• 6 universities selection (AAiT, AASTU, MU, DBU, DDU, HU)- finalizing partnership May 20
• Agenda preparation - May 25
• Timeline preparation and concept note for guests and speakers - May 30
• Guests and speakers selection - May 31
• First university seminar - June 15
• Other universities follow every month until summer break.

The budget is allocated to each university. Meaning organizing each seminar will have a logistics cost, and each university will have $1500 allocated to host the seminars. Here is the list of the cost break down:

• Transportation $200
• Small refreshment for seminar attendees $150
• Printed materials for students to keep and read at their own pace $200
• Collaborators incentive including the speakers who will give lectures on the day $500
• Campus promotion materials (printed or online social media ad) $100
• Q&A ( activity incentives for actively participating students) $150
• Contingency $200

My team has more than enough experience to hold such seminars in universities as they have the qualities listed below:

• Most of the team members are part of university staff members, which will be easier for this project to find partner universities.
• Experience organizing university workshops. It is part of the curriculum to host at least two workshops per year.
• Enough experience delivering various topics interestingly for students. This will help us engage with the youth efficiently, and it will also help to spark interest among the attendees.

The seminar is planned to be hosted every month in different universities, so the major measurement will be the project's timeline, which will be for six months pilot program. The progress will be tracked accordingly to the timeline set for the project.

The other aspect of measuring the progress will be the number of students joining the local Cardano community and the global community. This is highly dependent on the value we deliver on the seminar, which has to be enough awareness that will keep the students engaged.

• Number of attendees at the seminars
• Number of universities interested to host the seminars
• Number of students joining local Cardano community
• Number of ideas raised to the project catalyst by attendees
• Number of seminars

This proposal is an entirely new project.